Although we live in a world of celebrity “conscious uncoupling,” most of us also understand that divorce is rarely perfectly simple and easy. Whether it’s ourselves, our family members, or our friends, what we hope for is that eventually everything smooths out into peaceful coexistence, and that, if there are children involved, a successful co-parenting partnership forms.
This is what Sean hoped for when his marriage broke up almost a decade ago. He shared a three-year-old son with his ex-wife, and he wanted, more than anything, to shield his little boy from the conflict and keep his home-life stable.
Nine years later, he’s still trying. And that’s what brought him to Cope’s co-parenting class, the Triple P -Positive Parenting Program® Family Transitions.
Though it is definitely in the past, the topic of the divorce is still raw. “I fought it,” he recalls, “I tried with every ounce of my soul to make it work. I wanted my son growing up with two parents.” Despite that, it’s been long enough now that Sean has reached the point of resignation. As he says, “No one is happy about going through a divorce, but I’ve moved on.”
He explains the drive to stay married by describing his own childhood: “I come from a broken family. My mom completely abandoned me when I was 13. I’ve done everything I could to stay in my son’s life.”
Sean serves in the Coast Guard, often as part of expeditions tracking drug runners. He’s clearly pretty comfortable staying calm in high-stress situations. He uses discipline, humor, and a meditation practice to maintain his equilibrium, and those generally seem to work well for him. He’s inspired by the memory of how his own dad managed the upheaval during his childhood: “My dad handled it the best way that anyone could, so that’s always been my role model - my father. I really try my hardest to not let it get to me in front of my son, try to just let him be a kid. For the last nine years, the only one who can push my buttons is my ex.”
“I just wish I would have learned about this a lot sooner...”
He’s been through so much legal wrangling over custody issues that he’s rarely surprised by anything he hears from a court-appointed mediator, but a session a few months ago included a new directive: instructions for him and his ex to take the Family Transitions class at Cope. “I just wish I would have learned about this a lot sooner,” he says. “If we hadn’t been ordered by the court to come here, I would have had no clue what this place was, what services it offers.”
Sean admits that during the divorce, he might not have been able to absorb the information from the class. “I wasn’t ready. When I first started going through separation, it was so raw and so painful that I wanted to be mad. It was the only thing I could do that made me feel better. When I started mediation nine years ago, the class would have helped immensely. I feel like it would have saved me so much pain, so much anguish of having to learn this stuff the hard way.”
He’s been separated longer than anyone else in his class. During discussions, he gets asked a lot of questions, especially by the younger dads. He laughs a little at this: “When the teacher asks, ‘Who’s ever experienced this?,’ everyone looks at me.“ Although he was impressed by his instructor, he says “the biggest aha moment” actually came during a class discussion. “It made me realize that I wasn’t the only person in this situation. I’m not the only unlucky schmuck that this has happened to.” Although the memories are negative, sharing them feels positive, and it also feels positive to support his classmates: “I tell them, ‘You and your ex probably won’t see eye to eye, but if you’re willing to put forth effort, this will help.’
And even though some of the material feels like a review of the most painful part of his life, Sean says, “Hearing it in class reaffirms the way I’ve been coping with the situation. It makes me feel like I’m on the right track. Yes, I’m doing this for me, but I’m really doing it for my son. I can’t control anyone else, but I CAN control how my reactions affect the people around me. No good fight is going to be easy, but it’s gotten so much easier over time. My dad had a saying: ‘It’s never hard to do the right thing,’ because it would be hard to look back and face that you’d done something wrong. I might be going through five feet of mud every day, but it’s still the high road.”
Cope’s Triple P Family Transitions class is made possible by funding provided by the County of Napa, Auction Napa Valley and support from the community.